Wanted: Girl Friday. Must Be Organized and Understand Blonde Logic!

September 22, 2011

On Tuesday I fantasized about a quiet office of my own where I could write undisturbed, except of course by the hunky male receptionist in the main lobby who would bring me important messages.

Today as I prepare to work on rewrites, with my printed manuscript spread out across my bed in various stacks for each chapter, with staggered stacks for revisions…post it notes, red pen marks and color coded paper clips for organization….and did I mention the pretty file folders that are supposed to help keep things in the right order? (You haven’t forgotten that I’m the Queen of Run-on Sentences have you?) Anyway, today, I’ve decided I also need a personal assistant. Not a hunky male assistant—that would be way too distracting. No, I need a real assistant. One who can tell me that the notes in the first stack are from the first revisions, and I’ve already implemented them in the second, trashed them in the third, and reworked them back into the manuscript in the fourth revision….of course not all chapters have fourth revisions, so my assistant would need to be able to help me go from the fourth revision of chapters one through three, to the second revision of Chapter Four to the new Chapter Five which bumped the old chapters five through twelve to chapters six through thirteen, and the parts of Chapter Eight that I cut out and replaced with completely new scenes…except for the old scenes that I kept, oh and Chapter Seven which was completely disassembled and spread through chapters seven, four and twelve…and somehow now I have sixteen chapters, well she needs to help me keep that all in order as I revise the manuscript…you know, someone like that!

Yep, I need a real ‘Girl Friday’ who will field phone calls….well the ones the distracting hunky male receptionist brings from the lobby, without being distracted herself, understand my creative process and the organization of my brain as well as my work, because although the stacks on my bed sound like chaos (since I’d be in my beautifully decorated office, the stacks would not be on my bed) there is immense organization there as well….if you can figure it out…or work your way through all of the run-on sentences in my life…

I picture her as though in an old black and white movie, very serious in a nice suit, and with stockings and low pumps…hmm, I might have to redecorate my office from a Victorian hideaway to a 1940’s movie set, and put a phone on her desk—you know an old black rotary phone with a coiled cord from the handset to the base? (Well, if you’re too young to know then go watch an old movie!) …Anyway, she would bring me green tea—yes I know it should be coffee, but I don’t like coffee, so I drink green tea—and a healthy lunch, keep me very organized and keep the hunky male receptionist…and my hunky husband from distracting me while I worked. Not that my hunky husband has time to distract me, usually he’s too busy at work and I’m the one calling him saying, “Should I leave in the parts of Chapter Eight that I cut out, or should I just cut Chapter Eight entirely and make Chapter Nine the new Chapter Eight, which would make chapters ten through sixteen, chapters nine through fifteen…well, honey, what do you think? Honey? Are you there?”

So you can see why I need an office and a ‘Girl Friday’…and why I’m the Queen of Run-on Sentences…anyone want to apply for the job?